- holds it firmly, though laughingly, and will not give it back to his mother, who tries to take it from him. This is what I have succeeded arranging with him. Florence, April 4, 1502. Fra Pietro da Nuvolaria, Vice-General of the Carmelites.'[1]
Now in these two very explicit letters, written at the time, we have four pictures distinctly specified—the St. Anne, two portraits, and the Madonna with the Spindles. Let us see if we can trace them.
The St. Anne is now in the Louvre, for as Müntz asserts: 'This letter removes all doubt as to the identity of the composition of the picture (St. Anne) in the Louvre with that produced by Leonardo in 1501.'[2] Mr. Herbert Cook endorses this, and says: 'Fortunately, the original still hangs in the Salon Carre of the Louvre; for, defaced though it be, and retouched by other hands, there can be no doubt that this is the very picture mentioned in 1517 as on Leonardo's easel and still incomplete.'[3] Other authorities are equally satisfied on the point, so there is no question that the St. Anne picture seen by Fra Nuvolaria is now in the Louvre.
The Madonna with the Spindles is also accounted for in the letter of the Florentine Ambassador to the French Court—Francesco Pandolfini—dated Blois, June 22, 1507, in which he states that having that day had an interview with the French King, Louis XII, his Majesty wants Leonardo to paint some Madonna pictures for him, and, perhaps, his portrait. 'All this,' adds the Ambassador, 'came from a little painting from his hand that has recently been brought here, and which is judged to be an excellent work.'[4]
7
- ↑ Müntz seems to have got hopelessly fogged over these dates. He gives the date of this letter in his text as April, 1503 (vol. 2, p. 120), yet he gives the writer's date at foot of the letter as April 4, 1502, and refers to Calvi's biography of Leonardo, which gives the date as April 4, 1501. Fra Nuvolaria dated it according to the Old Style, or Julian, year, which commenced on March 25th, as it did in England until 1752. Calvi's difference in the date of a year is accounted for by his reckoning it according to the New Style, or Gregorian Calendar, which commenced the year with January in 1582, but this would not account for Müntz's difference of two years. Richter (p. 63) gives this date as April 4, 1501. It should be noted that March 28th to April 4th is just one week, and that Fra Nuvolaria promised in his first letter to 'apply all care and haste to the commission,' which could scarcely apply to a letter two years later, or even a year later. Dr. Georg Gronau also falls into this error when he states: 'Almost exactly a year later the Carmelite could inform Isabella of a visit which he paid to Leonardo on Easter Wednesday, April 4, 1502' (p. 36).
- ↑ Müntz (vol. 2, p. 124).
- ↑ 'Burlington Magazine,' December, 1911 (vol. 20, No. 105). Mr. Cook here refers to the visit the Cardinal d'Aragon paid Leonardo at Cloux, near Amboise in 1517, with which I shall deal in due course.
- ↑ 'We may assume that Pandolfini here alludes to the picture of the Madonna with the Spindles, painted by Leonardo for Robertet, the King's Chancellor.' Richter's 'Leonardo,' p. 93.
